Between 1788 and 1880 some 1.3 million free emigrants arrived in Australia from the British Isles. It was a huge transition, both geographically and culturally, and one way of dealing with this appears to have been to write a diary. The surviving diaries offer snapshots of the lives of and experiences of many ordinary people who emigrated. In this study the author analyzes these journals and diaries to attempt to answer the question "how did writing a diary help diarists make sense of such a momentous and absolutely alien experience as emigration by boat to a continent bout which they probably knew almost nothing?" The stories which emerge are as much to do with the process of life-writing as they are a historical snapshot of a bygone time.
- ISBN10 0719045460
- ISBN13 9780719045462
- Publish Date 15 December 1994 (first published 28 February 1991)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 22 November 1999
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Manchester University Press
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 244
- Language English